


Variations on Piaf

by TheColorBlue



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Edith Piaf - Freeform, Fantasia, Gen, Music, dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-28
Updated: 2011-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-24 03:16:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/258333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in the style of Disney's <i>Fantasia</i>. <i>The deeper they go, the harder it is for them to remember the sound, the rhythm, the color of the First Song. It had been Arthur's idea--the idea that in dreams, The Song grew and shaped and changed.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Variations on Piaf

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr [post](http://oxboxer.tumblr.com/post/945041767/soloproject-if-inception-was-made-by-disney#notes); also [this one](http://fuckyeahinception.tumblr.com/post/966874391/eames-arthur-by-innueneko) (mild nudity in this one; gorgeous use of colors); and here's [another one](http://fuckyeahinceptionships.tumblr.com/post/1024981575/bazookastar-innueneko-lj); and the fact that _Inception_ 's soundtrack is variations on the Piaf song, “Je Ne Regrette Rien.”  
> Credit to the artist: [innueneko](http://innueneko.livejournal.com/).
> 
> The songs here are roughly these: “Je Ne Regrette Rien,” “Dream is Collapsing,” and “Time.”

The deeper they go, the harder it is for them to remember the sound, the rhythm, the color of the First Song. It had been Arthur's idea--the idea that in dreams, The Song grew and shaped and changed. The light changed. The sound became hard, then soft again. And in the distance there is a certain progression of chords that Arthur strains to hear. He goes deeper and deeper and deeper. And Eames follows.

\--

In the waking world, The Song is bright and gold and red and white. The words sing of regret for nothing. The light is so rich you could almost drink it in, tasting sweet and cool and warm and alive.

Arthur sits on the balcony of a flat overlooking a vineyard in the city. The city around him is golden and old and quaint and modern all at once, cobbled together like notes on a bar. The Song is all around him. It moves in his breath and in his bones. It is threaded into each movement, each gesture, the beats as he stands, as he picks up his wine glass, as he sips and sets it down.

Yet. There is something inside of him that moves in variation. It is cool and hard and dark and white. It clinks like tiny stones, or like fragments of mirrors or glass. When he closes his eyes and covers his ears with his hands, he thinks he might even hear what it is. It is faraway and distant. The First Song covers it over like the waves breaking on the surface of the ocean. If he could move more deeply into himself, he thinks, into sleep or dreams or through a wall of silence, he could find those variations, those counterpoints to the First Song. It is music moving inside of him. He closes his eyes and tries to hear it.

\--

Eames changes with each measure of Song. Colors and textures in his clothing shift and fold--paisley one moment, pin-stripe the next. There are also the colors of his eyes, the highlights in his hair. There is the way that he walks, gravity and poise and balance. There is a kind of awareness of his body--when he moves with brisk steps, weight shifting as he leans forward to steal Arthur's coffee, arms and fingers a perfect arc, perfect _port de bras_ , and then shoulders loose and slouching once more.

He flips a poker chip into the air, then catches it again.

"I don't know what you're going on about," Eames says sliding into the chair across from Arthur's. "What music you're looking for that isn't already here--all around us."

\--

Below them, beyond the vineyards, Ariadne dances on the lip of the fountain in the square. Her soft brown hair is flyaway. Her scarf is a red and rose banner.

\--

In his shop, Yusuf mixes chemicals and powders that turn into butterflies, birds. They fill the shop with colors like copper, amber, green. His cat bats at a moth made of powdery white light.

\--

Saito handles an expensive new vase made of porcelain, painted over with flowers and leaves and lakes. He listens to the sound it makes, the music of the material, before nodding to his assistant, they will be taking this one.

\--

The city sings.

\--

But Cobb knows what Arthur is talking about, would know what Arthur is talking about.

Mal killed herself because of the haunting of a Song that would not die in her heart. He spins the little top that was once Mal's, and walks with his children through the city park. He tries to mesh himself once more into the pattern of the city, the notes and the music, _no, nothing at all, I regret nothing at all_... but the weight of Mal's death is heavy in his body--the movement of his hand catching through his hair as he brushes it back, the way he stands as his children play on the swings. For him as well, the Song is different.

\--

Eames insists, "You're not stupid. You saw what happened to Dominic's wife."

When Arthur does not say anything, "I'll go with you," Eames says.

When Arthur eyes Eames narrowly at that, Eames simply smiles. “You’re going to need someone to look after you when you’re down there, pet.”

Arthur seems to contemplate that. His expression has gone thoughtful but Eames does not know what he is thinking.

Arthur says nothing when Eames steals the last biscuit from his plate, his fingers moving across the table like a figure dancing, before he's snatched the biscuit up.

The bread is soft like butter on his tongue.

\--

They fall asleep on the couch in Arthur's flat. Arthur sits in a sprawl with his cheek resting in the corner that meets between back and armrest. Eames curls around a cushion, fitted into the other side of the couch. The Song moves around them, then pulls them down and deep and somewhere else.

They sleep, and then they dream. The music shifts and changes.

The Second Song is cool and heavy and dark.

Around them is a city, built tall with concrete and metal and glass. Rain pours down. They are standing under an umbrella that Arthur holds above their heads. Eames hunches over to avoid the water that tumbles and patters in a rhythm that is and is not familiar. The colors of his dress shirt go dark violet and then indigo and green in sympathy. Arthur has closed his eyes, listening.

Eames contemplates dancing in the rain, but somehow this is not the world in which such movement would fit. Everything here is sharp and cold and smooth.

“Cheery place you’ve got here,” Eames says.

Arthur ignores him. He begins to walk, and Eames trails after in order to avoid the wet. Their steps slosh-click against concrete in a kind of accompaniment to the Song. The rain patter patters all around them.

The music seems to be building. Eames does not like the feeling of it in his stomach.

“Arthur,” Eames says.

Arthur is listening to the city.

"This isn't the Song," Arthur says at last. "We need to go deeper."

Eames regards Arthur with faint disbelief. "After you, love.”

The music crescendos.

Around them, the buildings tremble and vibrate. Glass begins to shatter, miles and miles of it, sparkling with the rain.

They start to run. Arthur’s umbrella is pushed and pulled by the wind. Arthur lets it go and they are quickly soaked through. When Eames glances over at Arthur, there is something like a knife in his expression and figure. It is concentrating and focusing and hard and sharp. He is shaped by the Song of this world, or perhaps he is shaping it. He realizes: their waking world, its Song, had blunted that expression and movement in Arthur. Here, the city is steel and granite and white. A shard of glass catches Eames on the cheek, another grazes his knuckles. Blood wells red.

“Arthur!” Eames shouts.

Arthur looks back at Eames. Eames has never seen such an expression before on Arthur’s face.

Then the tide hits Eames’ back and pulls him under.

\--

His is buffeted by the rolling of the waves. His knees scrape against pebbly sand.

Light spills out somewhere above him, watery and white and blue.

Eames surfaces with a gasp. The taste of salt and sand is heavy in his mouth. He coughs. He flounders for a moment, before his feet have found purchase under the waves. He braces his legs against the pounding of the water, and then he’s struggling to wade for the shore.

Arthur is already on land when Eames has finally collected his bearings out in the water. Arthur looks half-drowned. He is staring out at where the line of the shore snakes off and away into the distance. There is nothing except sand and cliffs like the ruins of a white city, crumbled and beautiful.

The Third Song is quiet and soft and slow like the waves breaking on the shoreline, the water moving in, then out.

After Eames has dragged himself to land as well, Arthur begins to walk along the shore without saying a word. He is clumsy in wet shoes and clothes that cling to him, heavy with sand and salt water. Eames regards the stiff line of the other man's back as he trails after. In this world, he feels as though his colors have muted. His feet drag in the sand.

“Arthur,” Eames says. His voice feels hoarse.

“ _Arthur_ ,” Eames says again, more loudly, working the sand from his throat.

Arthur continues to walk without looking back. He continues to walk, and then a minute passes and he stops and the Song—the Song is a pattern, a progression of chords seeping into Eames’ lungs, making them ache. A kind of emptiness is pulling at his chest.

"What are you looking for?" Eames asks. He is trying to drag that Song out of his chest, to fill the space around them with a different sound. He tries to sound angry. He isn’t. “Come on, damn you Arthur, what are you looking for—“

"I don't _know_ ," Arthur says, nearly shouts, turning to face the other man. The veneer breaks.

He bends over clumsily, and Eames realizes that it is to pull off his shoes, his socks. Arthur throws them into the ocean, flings them as hard as he can. His jacket follows.

The Song around them is soft and quiet and never-ending. The ocean is before them, and so is the sky. The world looks so empty.

"Arthur," Eames says.

He doesn't know what to think, if this is the Song that has been haunting Arthur, shaping him, and being shaped by him.

Arthur has knelt down in the tide. His palm catches around a white shell and wet sand. "Do you think," Arthur says, his voice quiet and even, "I'd be able to bring it back with me?"

He is speaking of the Song.

"I don't think so," Eames says, gently, kneeling down in the sand as well.

Arthur says, "I will."

There is something like a knife in Arthur’s posture and expression—but not like in the black and silver city, hardened edges and cutting through the rain. Eames looks at that expression and sees someone who will set himself to a task and not stop until it is done, or until the point of his blade has been ground down into nothing.

Eames looks at Arthur and feels something strange then, something strange and sad. It is a color like gray and white and pale, pale blue.

It may have been regret.


End file.
